When Jesus Is Rejected, He Still Wins

Well, it is a joy to be with you to continue our series on the book of Acts entitled The Church of God. The book is full of the story of the unfolding plans of God as He builds and equips His church to carry out the mission to which He has called it. At the beginning of this series, a few weeks ago, I mentioned that we will not be working through this book in a thorough or a detailed way, chapter by chapter and verse by verse. Instead, we would be looking at the development of the larger story of the church of God through a salvation history lens. What this means is that we are looking at significant developments in the unfolding plan of God in the salvation of His people.

So in the first week, we saw how Jesus gave the marching orders to the apostles and thereby to the church as well. He gave them the great commission in Acts 1:8, that they were to be His witnesses, witnesses to Jesus in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Two weeks ago, we saw how the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 came and equipped the apostles to do this work. Last week, we saw how Gamaliel, an old Pharisee, is used to utter a prophetic statement regarding how irresistible this new movement called the church would be. Nothing can resist its growth because God is driving it Himself.

This week, we will look at Stephen, a deacon in the Jerusalem church and someone respected and much loved in his church community. He has been accused by the Pharisees, the same group probably from Acts chapter 5. He has been accused of blasphemy against Moses, against the law of God, and against God Himself. We pick up his story this morning from Acts 7. We're going to read from verse 1 through to the end of the chapter into chapter 8, verse 3.

So a longer section for us, but hopefully it gives us some really good context. Acts chapter 7, verse 1. And the high priest said to Stephen, are these things so, this accusation of blasphemy? And Stephen said, brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.

And He said to him, go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you. Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living. Yet He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child. And God spoke to this effect that his offspring would be sojourners in the land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.

But I will judge the nation that they serve, said God, and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place. And He gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob and Jacob of the 12 patriarchs. And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt.

But God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favour and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household. Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan and great affliction and our fathers could find no food. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit. And on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh. And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, 75 persons in all.

And Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, he and our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph. He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive. At this time, Moses was born and he was beautiful in God's sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father's house.

And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. When he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.

And on the following day, he appeared to them as they were quarrelling and tried to reconcile them saying, men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other? But the man who was wronging his neighbour thrust him aside saying, who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? At this retort, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord. I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And Moses trembled and did not dare to look.

Then the Lord said to him, take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt. This Moses, whom they rejected saying, who made you a ruler and a judge? This man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

This man led them out performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside and in their hearts they turned to Egypt saying to Aaron, make for us gods who will go before us.

As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And they made a calf in those days and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets. Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god, Rephan.

The images that you made to worship and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon. Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen. Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David who found favour in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for Him.

Yet the most high does not dwell in houses made by hands. As the prophet says, heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of My rest? Did not My hand make all these things? You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did, so do you.

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one, whom you have now betrayed and murdered. You who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it. Now when they heard these things, they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him who is Stephen. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

And he said, behold, I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

And falling to his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul approved of this execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. This is the word of God. So we find a very long and detailed speech by a man called Stephen. This, however, is written and brought to us in such a way as to make a statement that is on par with prophecy.

This is a prophetic announcement. We're going to look at three parts to this. Firstly, we're going to look at an overview of Stephen's speech, of what the content was of what he said. So firstly, Stephen's speech and an overview of it. He is making this case.

The history of Israel was consistently disobedient. Stephen's speech in Acts 7 is the longest of the recorded speeches in the whole book of Acts. He begins his speech by laying important theological foundations. He begins with father Abraham. He appeals to Joseph, and then he specifically dwells on Moses.

The interesting thing of this speech is, and why I would also deem it to be a prophetic utterance rather than a court case appeal, is that instead of using these heroes to build his defence, Stephen uses them to attack, to accuse the Sanhedrin. Abraham, Joseph, and Moses are all like expert witnesses in a courtroom, or better yet, superior judges condemning the corrupted judges that were sitting before him. With clear logic, Stephen uses the cameos of these Jewish heroes to present a challenge concerning the Jewish rulers' unfaithfulness to God, ultimately expressed in the crucifying of the Messiah. In brief, Stephen has four main cameos, emphasising four main role players in Israel's history. First, Stephen begins with Abraham to affirm the foundations of the Jewish self-understanding.

He does this by focusing on Abraham in verses 2 through to 8. He refers to themes which would have been very familiar to the Jewish worldview. He talks about Abraham's story and in it draws special attention to significant theological terms like the land in verses 2 through to 4. The promised land, in other words. He mentions the word offspring in verses 5 through to 7.

The promise of a nation that would come from Abraham. And then there's also the reference to circumcision in verse 8. For the Jewish rulers listening to Stephen, these are significant, theologically important words. Secondly, Joseph is mentioned in verses 9 through to 16, a man blessed with grace and wisdom. Joseph is used to show a pattern of God's salvation.

God is using an offspring of Abraham to bless the nations, to save not only his people, but the nations tied to this people. Thirdly, Moses is referenced in verses 17 through to 38, and he is a particular focus in this speech. Stephen explains that God gives his law to Moses so that God's people would worship him rightly. In this section, a comparison is also drawn between Moses and Jesus, showing Jesus to be the ultimate ruler, judge, and saviour that Israel needed. In particular, Stephen points out that Jesus is the prophet like Moses, that Moses himself predicted in Deuteronomy 18:15.

The fourth and final part of Stephen's speech then refers specifically to Jesus, verses 39 to 53. And here we find strong links back to the first section of Abraham. By linking Jesus back to the foundations of Jewish identity, Stephen emphasises the tragic reversal of Israel's situation. Jesus was the great offspring that Abraham was promised. He is the true blessing to the world, and yet he was killed by his fellow offspring, the Jews.

The Abrahamic promise of a good land, a land flowing with milk and honey, well, when Jesus arrives on the scene, Israel had shrunk to owning only a fraction of that promised land. Two out of the 12 tribes, of Judah. A place now known simply as Judea. Finally, despite the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, Stephen concludes his speech by saying that the Jews sitting in front of him have showed themselves to be a stiff-necked people with hearts and ears that are uncircumcised. And that is where Stephen draws the attention back to those sitting in front of him.

Throughout his speech, Stephen was highlighting the history of Israel as being consistently disobedient to God. But Stephen's hammer blow is that history has repeated itself with the Jews sitting in front of him. This reminds us of the important truth that God's saving purposes will come about through both willing and unwilling participants. For most of Israel's history, they were actually disobedient. They were God's people, but not because of their obedience, but because God remained faithful to His promises.

Even when they had received their long-awaited Messiah, Israel continued to be disobedient. They killed their Messiah. And yet, this is Stephen's climax. Yet through this disobedience, God has masterfully accomplished His will. Jesus was rejected.

He was killed by those leaders and yet in God's wisdom, this was done as part of His plan for the salvation of many and the blessing of the nations. Abraham's offspring had been consistently unfaithful, but Jesus was the perfect offspring of Abraham. He represented the righteous Israel. He was the one who actually became the blessing to the nations. And as Gentiles sitting in Australia two thousand years later, we are deeply thankful for that.

The knowledge that God can work through both willing and unwilling participants means that on the one hand, we remain optimistic about everything to do with God's will. Everything to do with God's unfolding kingdom because God wins. And the church will win with him. Millions, perhaps even billions will be saved and God is glorified into eternity for this marvellous work. So whether you find yourself on God's team this morning or you find yourself resisting His plan, in the great scheme of things, it actually doesn't matter.

God's purposes will be worked out through both the willing and the unwilling. God's will is what wins at the end. So this is one of the things we see in Stephen's speech. But now after giving this overview of Israel's history, Stephen moves to his appeal. And that is our second point.

Stephen's appeal. You have rejected Christ, repent and believe in him. The point that Stephen brings his speech towards is to make a biting critique of the Jews and their ongoing pattern of idolatry. He uses Amos 5 in verse 42 to observe how God has turned away from His people in judgment. God has rejected Israel. Stephen recounts Isaiah 66 as a critique to the thought that Jerusalem would remain the centrepiece for the worship of God.

The Jewish rulers thought that because they had the temple in Jerusalem, they could somehow cage God. They owned God. But Stephen using Isaiah 66 proclaims, the God of the universe does not fit in a cage. You stiff-necked people, he says, which is another echo to the accusation of God immediately after the incident of the golden calf in the story of the Exodus. You stiff-necked people.

Your hearts and your ears remain uncircumcised, Stephen tells them. This foundational covenant with Abraham, the covenant of circumcision, has had no lasting impact, Stephen is saying, on these accusers of his. This covenant of circumcision made with Abraham has not affected their hearts. It has not led to a love for God, nor has it affected their ability to heed God's word. Their ears, they have uncircumcised hearts and ears.

Shockingly, Stephen is saying that you are no more responsive to God than uncircumcised pagans. A humiliating charge. You always resist the Holy Spirit, he says to them. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? Indeed, he says, you yourselves have killed the righteous one.

You have killed Jesus, the Messiah. Nowhere does Stephen say the words repent and believe in this Jesus. Perhaps he knew that they wouldn't. But I can't help but think that a certain man by the name of Saul of Tarsus, who we know was present at this time. A man who hated Jesus.

A man who hated these Christians, who hated the church. Although Stephen didn't say the words repent and believe, we know his speech made a lasting impact on Paul. How do I know this? Because it was probably Paul who retold Stephen's speech to Luke who later wrote it down. These words and this final accusation that Stephen made took a hold of Paul.

At first, it caused him to be enraged. It caused him to condone the killing of Stephen, but then through God's grace, it was used to break him. Friends, the sin that sends any person to hell is not murder or rape or fraud. It is not even the breaking of any specific part of God's law. The sin that sends any person to hell is the rejection of God.

It is specifically the rejection of Jesus Christ. And so for the Jew or the non-Jew, everyone will be judged for what they have decided regarding Jesus Christ. It's not about whether you've led a reasonably clean life or whether you've tried to be a nice person. The passionate urgency by which Stephen condemns the Jewish leaders is aimed to shock them out of their complacency. Because for all their lives, they had thought that they were the good ones.

They were proud of being part of God's people. But this is exactly the same terrible danger that you and I can face, and that is to believe that we are much nicer, way smarter, way better informed than those who have gone before us. You might conclude that Israel was crazy to have disobeyed God so clearly. You may think the Pharisees were irredeemably wicked for their murder of Jesus. But you don't realise that apart from God's saving grace, you are as wicked and as disobedient as these men were.

Ultimately, the thing that God will ask when He sees you and I, whether He returns before we die or not, is the question, what have you done with My son? Did you receive him as some friendly but impotent teacher of ethics? Did you receive him as a figment of first century imagination? Did you receive him as a vague religious construct of your grandparents? Or did you receive him as king and saviour?

The Pharisees and the religious teachers, they knew about Jesus. They saw all the signs that were pointing to Jesus and they rejected him for the very same reason you and I will reject him, pride. You stiff-necked people. You've known enough, but you have never chosen to receive him personally and wholeheartedly. He must be both the king that you bow your knee to and the redeemer who needed to die for your sin.

Otherwise, he is nothing to you. Friends, your eternity will be locked away with these very same Pharisees who rejected him. And so I appeal to you as Stephen did. If you know this morning that you are rejecting Christ, repent and believe in him. Ultimately, Stephen's audience chose not to believe in Jesus.

That is why Stephen is killed for his testimony. But even so, the church continues to expand, and that is our third and our final point. We see the result of Stephen's speech. The mission of the church is expanded even at the cost of one person's life. In response to his climactic statement that the Jewish rulers have killed the Messiah, we see in verse 54 the words, they were enraged.

They gnashed their teeth at him, which incidentally is an Old Testament term. Again, it was often used of the wicked against the righteous. But then, ironically, in the New Testament, Jesus would often use that term regarding people who found themselves in hell. They gnashed their teeth at Stephen. And yet, Stephen is given a vision of the glorified Christ. He sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and this proclaims the fulfilment of Jesus' own prediction that He would be returning to the Father who had initially sent Him.

Being at God's right hand, Jesus is being held up to the Pharisees as the one who will judge and rule them. And as the one standing in that advisory position at the right hand of the Father, Jesus is also shown to have fulfilled the sacrificial and the temple system. Because now for believers everywhere, Jesus, as the book of Hebrews explains, provides a way to approach God not through the temple anymore, but through His sacrificial death and ascension. Interestingly, Jesus is seen by Stephen not as sitting at the right hand of God, but as standing. David Peterson in his commentary suggests that this may signify Jesus' readiness to receive Stephen.

Jesus is standing there welcoming Stephen back home. But it also might signify Jesus' readiness to act in judgment against the Jewish leaders who have rejected him. A king is seated when he is resting, but he is standing when he's about to do some work. And hearing this vision explained to them, the Jewish leaders, they cannot help themselves. They call for Stephen's execution.

Mind you, this is the fact. For a simple testimony about Jesus and an overview of Israel's history, Stephen is stoned to death. In remarkable irony, whilst Stephen's opponents accuse him of blaspheming the law of God, which they do in chapter 6, verse 11, Stephen's own death demonstrates the law-breaking character of his accusers, murdering someone without cause. Even as they reject the accusation that they are like their disobedient forefathers, they put to death another prophet of God. It is laden with irony.

The martyrdom of Stephen, who becomes incidentally the first Christian martyr in the church's history. This event leads to a terrible outburst of persecution, verses 1 through to 3 tells us in chapter 8. But here is the remarkable twist. This persecution only serves to grow the church. We see that the church disperses and moves out of Jerusalem, which for all this time had been basically in this one spot.

This persecution enables the preaching of the gospel, now not only by the apostles who choose to remain in Jerusalem, this preaching is taken out to Judea, the surrounding villages, and into Samaria itself. In other words, the prediction of Jesus in Acts 1:8, that the witness of him would go out to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. That is starting to happen. And what was the catalyst for this? The martyrdom of Stephen.

This amazing reversal of fortunes happens, where Jesus' enemies think persecution will stop Christian effort, yet persecution actually serves as a catalyst for the mission. We should take great comfort from that example. The mission of our church will not be limited by persecution. In fact, if or when persecution comes, the mission of the church simply pivots and is sharpened. Famously, the church father Tertullian, who lived in the third century AD during a time of great persecution by the Roman empire, was once purportedly recorded as saying, the blood of the saints becomes the seed of the church.

Where a martyr's blood has been spilled, the church seems to grow. What I think we should take from the story of Stephen's death is the encouragement that we don't need to fear any form of persecution, whether that is as extreme as being stoned to death or something more akin to workplace bullying. None of that hinders the plan of God. Now you can make a case, persuasively, that the Christians in Jerusalem didn't love persecution. Persecution.

They didn't embrace it and think this is great. That's why they leave Jerusalem. But see how God's plans are not foiled. Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, sovereignly uses persecution to actually move His people towards those regions that He had told them to go to. So on the one hand, is persecution evil?

Yes. Does it ruin God's plans? No. Church, let's not get bogged down by the hurdles. Let's not become despondent.

Resistance and rejection does not have the final say. The church must roll with the punches. And where one door is closed to us, we keep our eyes towards where God will open another. Finally, Stephen was not speaking as a lawyer in his appearance before his accusers. He wasn't giving a defence to be set free.

He was speaking as a prophet. Powerfully led by the Holy Spirit, Stephen turns the tables on his opponents by presenting not a defence, but an indictment against them. God uses Stephen to develop a scriptural, a biblical argument, charging Israel with consistently rejecting God and those sent to fulfil His purposes. He highlights the terrible pattern of Israel in resisting God's prophets, in disobeying the law. And then in a stunning closing statement, Stephen links Israel's historical disobedience to the Jews sitting in front of him.

The heartbreaking but profound irony is that in response to Stephen's careful exposition of their sin-sick hearts, these individuals take him to the city limits and throw rocks at him until he dies from his injuries. That death is a slow, painful, and communal one. Many people are involved in this type of death, and it shows just how far these people had fallen. In its communal aspect, we see Saul of Tarsus standing by. Perhaps not himself getting his hands dirty, but at least condoning what was happening.

And we will see as we go ahead in the story of Acts, how God uses this moment and a subsequent calling to radically alter this man's purpose in life. In closing, I want to ask this question, is there a hope for the Jews today? Even as we see this indictment against them two thousand years ago, is there a hope for the Jews? Yes. There is always.

But there is only a hope for them as there is for us in repentance and belief in Jesus Christ. That is the question that you must answer one day. What have you done concerning My son? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the incredibly encouraging example of not only a faithful man, a man whose name will echo into eternity.

The courage, the faithfulness, the incredible, forgiving love even at the end, asking for the forgiveness of his people. We thank you for this encouragement in his example that gives us something to be inspired by. And yet more deeply than this, more profoundly than his example is the truth that You cannot be foiled and that even as persecution as severe as death, something that seems so final, even as it knocks on the door of the church, Your church cannot be stopped. Your plan for the blessing of the nations cannot be subverted, cannot be diverted. It cannot be corrupted.

So we pray, Lord, that You will give us great hope even in our daily lives where we may never taste the fate of Stephen, but in all the various shades of persecution, the rejection, the isolation, the marginalisation. Lord, I pray that we will remain strong. I pray that You'll give us the same grace that You gave Stephen. Holy Spirit, empower us in every part of our thinking and doing that we may hold out the hope that can only be found in Jesus Christ no matter the consequences. And so, Lord, even as we speculate and we debate about what is the state of our church in Australia, Lord, help us to have a Gospel-centred optimism that Your plans will not fail, that Your church will succeed because God ultimately, You will win.

Thank you for this. In Jesus' name, amen.